Monday, February 16, 2009

BILL MOYERS: I think you wrote on your blog that Dave Brody from the Christian Broadcasting Network, Pat Robertson’s outfit, will one Sunday show up on “Meet the Press.” But an Amy Goodman of “Democracy Now” will never show up on “Meet the Press.” What’s behind that phenomenon?

JAY ROSEN: I think part of the reason is that if Amy Goodman came on “Meet the Press,” she would say all sorts of things that not only challenge the people on the program, but challenge what they have been saying over the years. Would go back, in a sense, discredit the narrative that’s been building up for a long time. And even though it’s maybe not wholly conscious, the idea that there’s a kind of building narrative that is more or less accurate, that we kind of tell you what’s going on in Washington, is a common assumption in the press. And people who would completely shatter that, don’t [get invited on shows such as NBC's Meet the Press].

GLENN GREENWALD: I think that’s exactly right. It’s all about the content of views. Rush Limbaugh can depict himself as being this insurgent outsider [..] [but] all of the conventional clichés that the media airs frequently [...] are ones that Rush Limbaugh and the furthest fringes of the right essentially embrace.

And so, to include [extreme right-wing views] into our discussion is not very disruptive at all, whereas if you had people on from the left who were advocating things like the United States’ responsibility for its unpopularity in the world, the fact that we wage wars and bomb other countries and invade and occupy other countries far more than any nation on the planet. To include somebody like [Amy Goodman] would not only threaten the vested interests of everybody who’s participating in these conversations, it would disrupt the entire narrative, as Jay said it would. [...]

[These views are] stigmatized, they’re demonized as being things that don’t really deserve a platform. And so, you can’t include advocates of these views in these shows.